Attack on transparency ends

The U.S.
Supreme Court doesn’t have time for speciousness and frivolity. We wish we
could say the same for public officials from 15 Texas cities, including
Rockport. They spent nearly nine years trying to undermine the Texas Open
Meetings Act until the court put an abrupt stop to it recently by declining to
review their case.

The
plaintiffs argued that this cherished bulwark of the principle of open
government violated another cherished right — theirs to free speech. How? Well,
apparently the notion that two women on the Alpine City Council shouldn’t have
e-mailed each other and two other council members privately to discuss official
city business, and that they could have faced criminal penalties for having
done so, was a tyrannical threat to the First Amendment.

The two
council women were indicted but, as is typical of enforcement of the act, never
were prosecuted. This law does a lot of good but public officials violate it
too often and suffer no real consequence. The criminal penalties, in practice,
amount to window dressing.

But those
few blunt teeth in the act were the plaintiffs’ primary objection. They saw
their indictment ordeal as “suppression of speech,” detrimental to the need for
a “robust conversation” on government matters, according to their attorney,
Craig Enoch, a former Texas Supreme Court justice.

The act
doesn’t prohibit speech. It prohibits public officials from whispering behind
the public’s back, out of earshot, when they’re doing the public’s business. It
requires quorums of public bodies to meet in public, after having given proper
notice to the public they have been entrusted to serve.

We know
the First Amendment. The First Amendment is a friend of ours (we’re exercising
it now, robustly). Allowing the public to overhear public officials’ speech in
public is no violation of First Amendment rights.

That’s
pretty much how the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals saw it last year. The
court ruled that Texas’ law against sneaky governing doesn’t limit speech; it
just promotes the public’s trust and discourages corruption, is all. The
plaintiffs’ argument to the contrary amounted to discouraging the public’s
trust and promoting corruption. They should be ashamed of themselves and voters
should remember who they are.

We’re
also curious how much of the public’s money was wasted on this case. The tally
should include the state’s time and effort defending the Open Meetings Act.

Speaking
of the state’s time and effort, defense of the act falls under Attorney General
Greg Abbott’s job description. So we think it’s only fair that he should have
the last word. Here’s the statement he issued the day of the decision, with
which we agree robustly:

“Open,
transparent government is fundamental to our democratic system of government.
Today’s decision ensures that the Texas Open Meetings Act will continue holding
elected officials accountable to conduct the taxpayers’ business in the light
of day and in a manner that informs the public about government
decision-making. Texans have a right to know about their government, their
elected representatives and the policies that are being adopted on the public’s
behalf and, thanks to the ruling, that openness will continue.”

Corpus
Christi Caller-Times

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